Blackmagic Design's Film Scanner and the 4K Future

"It's an odd thing to think about a film scanner coming out in 2014." I heard that from more than a few people at NAB 2014, including Blackmagic Design President Dan May -- right after the company had just unveiled their new Cintel Film Scanner in all its wall-mounted glory. It scans to UltraHD in real-time over ThunderBolt 2, it's about the weight of a flat-screen television, and it's a fraction of the price of the last Cintel film scanning product.

Why film? Who is shooting film anymore? Why are you releasing digital cinema cameras alongside a film scanner? Are you crazy? As it turns out, not so much. In fact, Blackmagic is thinking ahead about sourcing the future of media with the past.

The Cintel Film Scanner

"We have a lot of products designed to create new Ultra HD (UHD) content (3840x2160), between the cameras, the switchers, the recorders, and of course Resolve on the other end to color grade it all. Where the scanner fits in is to create even more UHD content by using existing assets. As crazy as it looks for the digital cinema camera company to come up with a film scanner, it's just another vehicle to be used to make more UHD content for the home viewer," explained Bob Caniglia, Senior Regional Manager for Blackmagic Design. Those existing assets? Television and movies shot on 35mm film over the last thirty years.

But when Blackmagic Design purchased Cintel about two years ago, the scanner wasn't the main goal. Cintel, a British company founded in 1927, has had a long history in the cinema and television world: providing cathode ray tubes in World War II, the first 35mm continuous motion flying spot telecine in 1946, and innovations in telecine and scanning in SD then HD image capturing through 2005. And Blackmagic CEO Grant Petty, once a telecine engineer, was familiar with the vast depth of Cintel's cinematic intellectual property, so acquiring Cintel was a logical decision in crafting new film tools, and the scanner was one intriguing piece of the company.

Blackmagic Design's Singapore post-production facility even had one of Cintel's first DiTTo film scanning machines, a multi-million dollar investment at the time. Caniglia elaborated: "Grant's idea, especially in light of the development of UHD for TVs, was since there's a lot of 35mm film out there that's been shot, whether it's old television shows or movies, if we could build a real-time scanner that could just take the film, scan it and make UHD content from it, then that would be a great way to source the new TV channels as they need content." Much cheaper than those million dollar film scanning machines, or the thousand dollars plus per hour post houses charged to use them.

In fact, UHD televisions are on the rise in the wild. While the online debate seems to continue about whether the consumer needs 4K in the home or not, a number of researchers are predicting the faster-than-anticipated adoption of UHD in the home anyway, with UK-based consultancy Futuresource forecasting that 42% of flat panel sales will be 4K sets by 2018. "Faster-than-anticipated" seems to be the trend for 4K, with Japan-based broadcasters expecting to launch 4K and 8K playout much sooner than even they originally expected and Netflix recently announcing they've already begun streaming limited 4K content.

The Blackmagic Design Booth at NAB 2014, courtesy Robb Cohen / NAB.

Which makes a product like the Cintel Film Scanner even more well-timed, and therefore more awesome: rather than having these sets upscaling HD for us (which is kinda cool), we'll have actual UHD content to see (which is really cool). Right now it's House of Cards and some nature documentaries. A year after the Cintel Film Scanner ships, maybe it'll be seasons one through nine of Seinfeld.

Wait, why Seinfeld? Well, it was a pretty big deal when the show was originally rescanned for high-definition broadcast, and that didn't happen all that long ago. In 2009 -- yeah, five years ago -- channels started broadcasting all reruns of the show in HD, rather than upscaling and stretching old 4:3 episodes. Now when you watch a rerun of a 90s sitcom in syndication -- Seinfeld, Friends, Cheers -- they're all in pristine 16:9 high-definition, even though they were shot in 1994.

That's because many of these shows (and even older shows and movies) were shot on super 35mm film and cropped to 4:3 in post-production for standard-definition broadcast. Shooting on film was often the go-to since video wasn't as robust (and really looked like video), so there's quite a lot of film and television sitting around on 16mm or 35mm film.

And a lot of it is STILL just sitting around, because the process of scanning to HD has been slow and expensive for a long time, with a 22 episode season of a television show costing hundreds of thousands of dollars to scan and finish. Right now, you can probably think of a Blu-ray you wish existed, but STILL doesn't in 2014 (The Abyss is seriously not on Blu-ray yet? Star Trek The Motion Picture only came out last year? Where is the nerd rage?).

Because it's still been too expensive for studios to justify spending the time and money to dig out film to scan. Caniglia added, "They probably cherry picked most of the stuff of what they wanted to show you, but maybe we can go back to some of the older stuff. That would be even cooler to see some of the older shows. I think the other thing is that when you have companies like Netflix and some of the other online providers, their desire to have a huge library on-demand type viewing would increase the need to do more and more of this type of scanning."

Three plugs: HDMI, Thunderbolt 2 and power

Given that the Cintel Film Scanner will be about $30,000, it seems a cost-effective solution to getting more content not only to HD, but UHD, partially because the device does not require an engineer or long-term maintenance plan to operate like many old film scanners. Actually, it only has three plugs: an HDMI output to send it to a monitor so you can see the signal to check alignment and focus, a Thunderbolt 2 connection to get the images, and the power cable.

The device outputs a RAW log file via Thunderbolt 2, which you can make RGB or YUV, ProRes 4K being YUV for UHD content. Currently, it will come with a software application similar to ImageMill in Cintel's products, which includes grain-reduction and image-stablilization (previously an add-on box worth over $150,000). There are plans to integrate it more with DaVinci Resolve over time, but right now, it can even capture up to 30 fps to a laptop.

The only other thing to do on the device is threading the film itself, which is a lot different than the film scanners of the dark ages of post production which basically shipped with an engineer who needed to unpack, set up and test the machine, then teach everyone to use it properly. Described by many as "big" "clunky" and "loud", these scanners were an example of everything not to do for Blackmagic's new take on the product.

This scanner does have room presence for sure. For something that was originally intended as a technology demo, it's a visual show-stealer. I watched more people taking selfies with the scanner than I did any other product on the NAB show floor, which is endearingly adorable. And that's great, because part of Blackmagic's mission was to create something that looked good. Another goal: a film scanner that would fit through a doorway. Although the diTTO film scanner was marketed as a "tabletop scanner", as Caniglia said, "it'd have to be a pretty big table top."

I watched more people taking selfies with the scanner than I did any other product on the NAB show floor!

These machines, which needed to be disassembled to move in between rooms, were often a million dollars or more, not including that engineer that needed to monitor it. And when someone was operating it, the room would shake. Caniglia said, "the first time I saw [the Cintel Film Scanner] and it had film in it, the first thing I did was put my hand on the back to feel the vibration, or lack thereof. And that was the part that I was like 'wow, how did you guys do this.' And I realized it's because a lot of the guys that designed scanners over time were film guys, and not really industrial design guys."

In addition to previous Cintel employees, many of the people working on Blackmagic Design's products focus on industrial design and come from all industries. Rather than paying attention specifically to the functions of what the film needs inside the scanner, they work on the idea of creating a product that meets certain parameters and uses new kinds of mechanics to meet those goals, in a broader sense. The blend of function and aesthetic has become more of a focus, including the idea of building a scanner that is light enough to mount on a wall.

"That's funny because it really was one of Grant's goals. He was like 'wouldn't it just be cool to hang one of these in a color grading room'.... [H]e said he wanted it flatter, but the film has to rest so it has to be on an angle," said Caniglia. He also added: " I don't know that anyone would put it on an articulating arm, but that would be kinda cool too."

Blackmagic says that the scanner was not designed with very old or low quality film in mind, but considering it was a tech demo, there are more tests to be done and feedback to receive on the product before it ships. Even so, given the drive and resourcefulness of Blackmagic's customers, it's difficult to imagine the impact of the product on the film industry.

May added, "We realize that not everybody is going to buy it, but it is a really important part of a workflow that fills out and will continue to fill out our overall 'what is Blackmagic?' We want to have all these pieces that say we're creating content. We're doing live content, we're taking old content, we're able to kind of enable everybody to have something to be able to do content generation, and it looks great."

All in the Family can very easily be uprezzed with a Terranex box for a couple of grand. I don't know if you've seen the output from those, but it looks impossibly good. All it will take is somebody deciding it's worth doing, but money and technology are an even lower barrier than film.

The focus on 90s TV is natural, but that's the least interesting part to me. As Kylee notes in her story, a staggering number of high quality, high profile pictures from the last 30-40 years aren't HD yet. That's a good enough target, and more than enough bang for the buck to justify buying a couple for any studio. In that sense, they're getting the 4k for free. :-) This obviously isn't primarily a restoration story, but 4k DI for a print in relatively good shape, or polishing through DaVinci Revival becomes dead simple, even for HD output.

Even more interesting to me is the next tier down. Indie films, documentaries, b-movies, industrials, educational and classroom films, government projects (including visitor center archival film), and the plethora of 16mm that represents the majority of professional production. Dropping it to Blu-Ray for festivals, or using clips for new docs - this is coming up on miraculous.

I can also see a service bureau kind of offering for even mid-sized post houses. I may not need it for many projects, or even ANY, and my university archive or national park may not be able to justify it for a one-off, but imagine being able to charge a nominal fee, say a grand or two, and then be able to a charge from there. What's that you say? You need some color correction for minor dust and scratches fixes? Here's our rate card.

An enterprising entreprenuer could pay for this thing in a few months. Certainly less than a year. Less time than an electrolysis machine to ROI.

The audio question is a good one, and we don't yet know everything there is to know, but the possibilities seem pretty limitless, especially as you go beyond what's most immediate Lee obvious. I think that's what we're really getting at with the idea of breathing new life into film.

Tim Wilson "The focus on 90s TV is natural, but that's the least interesting part to me. As Kylee notes in her story, a staggering number of high quality, high profile pictures from the last 30-40 years aren't HD yet."

I would think that the BMD Film Scanner would lend itself to more for Seinfeld shows being scanned than All in the Family shows. Kylee points out that the scanner is more for preservation than it is for restoration, "Blackmagic says that the scanner was not designed with very old or low quality film in mind."

I remember when Star Wars had its rerelease in the late 90's and the restoration crew talked about how bad the original negative was already after 20 years. I'm wondering if this "preservation not restoration" angle would exclude shows like All in the Family or if that comment is simply to rule out the extreme, like a lost Mary Pickford film that spent a century sitting in a barn.

Kylee's point about All In The Family is that it wasn't shot on film. It was on video -- in fact, they spoke the words aloud over the end credits, "Shot on video in front of a live audience." Hence my suggestion for running the footage through a Teranex. Conversion to HD is a no-brainer, but even SD to 4K looks amazing.

It's worth noting that the most recent DVD release of All in the Family was...2012! And yes, DVD, not Blu-ray.

Also, you ended my quote right before the interesting part. LOL Your point about movies from 80s maybe being beyond its reach is well-taken, but MORE than TV, MORE than feature films, I want to see the docs, indie features, industrials, classroom films -- all THAT kind of 16mm stuff.

I also think Blackmagic is underselling their feature set. I like it, because it shows they understand the business, and I get the feeling that a lot of the disrupters over the years really haven't. They KNOW that a lot of old film needs to be scanned in one frame at a time, especially when it's not up to being played in real time at all, scanned or no. There's always going to be a place for the black box, 100% focused facilities who are wholly focused on this. THOSE are the guys you give the Mary Pickford film to.

But really, if a film can go through the sprockets at all, I think that there will be people who'll make this work in ways that Blackmagic would never rationally try to make a use case for.

That's the story of their emerging feature set as a whole. Sure, there are holes in it, as the studio camera guys have pointed at in particular. But you add BMD monitors and talkback to the camera, and out of the gate, they're miles in front of a bunch of other people.

As far as TV goes, though, I still think that the focus on sitcoms is wrong. The fact is that a lot of those guys were protecting for HD framing while they were shooting. You can see EXACTLY when this happened in Frazier, because all of Eddie's "acting" business was moved off the floor and on to the sofa. They couldn't keep the doors and Eddie on the floor in a 16:9, and in the kind of French farce that Frazier's home life was modeled on, nothing is more important than the doors.

But the 90s-early aughts sitcoms are mostly covered. Are there are any big ones out there? Because the TRUTH is out there, and ima tell you right now - no X-Files on Blu-ray is no good. That one's tough because there were 202 episodes, but that and Twin Peaks were so expressly cinematic in their approaches from the very beginning that they really cry out for it.

Where this starts to get especially interesting to me is when you consider shows like Northern Exposure and Buffy. I think they'd really benefit from HD remastering, but I don't know that those audiences would bite on a Blu-ray offering -- but can a studio make money just doing this for cable and streaming? DEFINITELY not just for streaming, which is the tragedy of the dominance of that delivery platform. Nobody's making anything on it but the platform providers yet.

So BMD is definitely getting price and technology for the scanning out of the way, and for an awful lot of the cleanup, if not all of it -- but to me, this is the real question: how do you monetize the output?

The scanning is the first step. After the actual WORK, there's still the actual release. So, the more episodes there are, the harder to make the case that this effort can pay for itself on disk, and nobody's making money on streaming...so...??

With the irony being that an indie producer could much more easily justify the much lower cost of a one-off. "Preserve it for posterity" starts to look like more than a dream. It starts to look like a very practical way for a dramatically larger audience to see the work at all, right now.

That's why I see so much potential for a service-bureau kind of function for some kinds of post houses, who can afford to build part of their business around something like $5000 scanning jobs, and figure out clean-up costs from there. And again, this becomes more interesting for small-to-mid-sized houses who may not have long-term commitments for TV series and such.

Sure, some of the magic is gone when you can see the seams so clearly in some of the older shows. Or even the not so old shows. I remember when HD came out and productions weren't adjusting to make sure their sets didn't look like crap, it was pretty weird. But the stories are ao good and one about the production value, it doesn't bother me so much.

Interestingly, another thing to consider is that many (maybe most?) of these shows were shot on film stock with a 1.85:1 aspect ratio. So when they made the HD transfers, they had to chop into part of the image to get a 16:9 frame.

However, all of this is preferable to me watching my reruns stretched or in postage stamp size on my inevitable UHD! Also preferable to have an iffy UHD version of Seinfeld for the future vs what happened with a number of fantastic shows shot on video, like All in the Family. Which will never (well, nor right now) be anything other than standard def.

What Todd describes is very true. How many of you rushed out to see the The Wizard of Oz when it was re-released again in U.S. theaters by WB on November 6, 1998. The version was a newly restored and remastered print with a remixed stereo soundtrack. As a fan of the movie since I was a small child - it was the first time I realized how obvious it was that Munchinkland and Oz were nothing more than forced perspective sets on a stage with poorly painted backdrops, a painted yellow brick road and at times displaying obvious set construction and costume flaws. Boy was my childhood bubble burst.

There is always the risk that past obvious production methods of a particular time will be displayed in their full unglamorous glory when up-rezzed and re-purposed for the next generation of consumer display technology (I can just imagine how the stage and sets to Oz or Seinfeld or St. Elsewhere will look like in 8k).

Bravo to Grant and BMD! I guess with 4K/8K UHD, we will just have to let our minds eye enjoy all of those great television shows instead of the critical eye.

Fair point, though I think the same argument is often made about NLEs being cheap and leading to lower quality work. It happens, but hopefully it's accessible enough that the experts will rise to the top.

I remember back in college in '92 or '93 I read an article I think in Millimeter magazine about how In the Heat of the Night was shooting Super 16 because of the wide format, so they'd be future proofed to rescan the shows as widescreen when HD finally came along. So hopefully the thought was out there for most shows. But Heat wasn't a studio set type show, but an a police drama shot on location.

Very interesting, and being a film guy I am certainly glad to see something like that being developed.

When those old TV shows start appearing in UHD though, I'm afraid that some of them might not quite aesthetically hold up. Much of everything visual (art direction, set design/construction, wardrobe, even makeup) wasn't created for the critical eye of even HD, much less UHD.

This is pretty noticeable in the HD re-scans of Seinfeld. In HD it's pretty clear that the hardwood floor in Jerry's apartment is a painted concrete stage floor, the wallpaper in Monk's Diner is what appears to be a spray-painted stencil, there are sometimes cracks between set flats (lots of corners that don't quite fit right)... and bunches of other little things that you'd never even notice in original-format SD NTSC.

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Shapeshifter in Los Angeles most recently color-corrected and added VFX to ten of the new 15 episodes of the cult TV show Arrested Development. The job came to the full-service post facility almost accidentally, when colorist Randy Coonfield advised the production on how to best round-trip between the company's Avids and its DaVinci Resolve from Blackmagic Design. Since all 15 episodes were released at once, Randy had his hands full, often color-correcting two episodes at a time to make the final push, turning out an entire season in a matter of days.
Here, Randy Coonfield talks to Creative COW about what it took to get this new on-demand season out and streaming.

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